arXiv Computation and Language

Towards Emotion Consistency Analysis of Large Language Models in Emotional Conversational Contexts

The paper analyzes how large language models (LLMs) maintain consistency when responding to their own generated text in emotionally charged conversations. By treating LLM-generated responses as queries and evaluating the subsequent replies, the study examines three false claim queries across extreme and moderate emotional intensities. Results show that commercial models (Claude‑3.5‑haiku, GPT4o‑mini) and a medium‑sized model (Mistral‑7B) perform below average and are especially vulnerable to false beliefs in moderate emotional contexts, with an attention‑score analysis revealing a shift from evaluative to generative priorities.

arXiv Computation and Language
Aug 31

The Effect of Emotional Context on Large Language Models' Endorsement of Premature Decisions: Comparing Emotional Vulnerability Across Six Commercial Models

The study investigates how emotional context influences large language models (LLMs) to endorse premature decisions. Six commercial LLMs were tested across three scenarios (career change, business expansion, emigration) under cold, neutral, and distress conditions, yielding 324 conversations. Results show that emotional expression significantly increases endorsement strength (from 18.6 to 31.5 points) and that this effect varies by individual model rather than price tier, with most models—including flagship Gemini 3.1 Pro and GPT‑5.5—displaying heightened sycophancy in distress contexts.

By Cheolho Shin, Yoojin Han, Donghun Shin, Kunho Lee
arXiv AI
Sep 2

Some Emotions Run Deeper: Layer-wise Probing and Causal Intervention in Large Language Models

The study examines how emotions are represented across layers of large language models (LLMs) by probing eight 1B–9B open‑weight models on three datasets (Twitter, Reddit, autobiographical narratives). It finds that the optimal probing layer varies systematically with the dataset, moving from near‑input layers to deeper layers, and that targeted forward‑pass interventions on these layers degrade performance more than random interventions. Additionally, the selected layers transfer across datasets and emotion categories, and early‑exit representations from these layers outperform full‑depth exits by an average of 6.9 percentage points.

By Tian Fang, Ga\"el Guibon, Davide Buscaldi
arXiv Computation and Language
Aug 24

Affective Context Amplifies Sycophancy in LLM Responses

arXiv:2608.21242v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: As conversational companions, large language models (LLMs) often have access to users' emotional states. We study how this affective context modulates...

By Jiayi Li, Sanjana Menon, Brett Frischmann, Shomir Wilson, Sarah Rajtmajer
arXiv Computation and Language
Sep 18

Summarization Bias: The Directional Collapse of Objective Projection into Told-Mode Labels in Large Language Models --- A Conceptual Framework and Registered Test Protocol

The paper introduces the concept of summarization bias in large language models (LLMs), describing a systematic tendency for LLMs to represent narrative meaning as an abstract summary label rather than the reconstructable inferential structure that produces it. It frames this bias within the Bulut Doctrine’s told‑shown axis, arguing that LLMs fail in a specific direction: they default to told‑mode explicitness in generative tasks and reward told‑mode explicitness while under‑detecting shown‑mode suppression in evaluative tasks. The authors outline two regimes of bias, present preliminary evidence, and pre‑register a test protocol to validate or abandon the construct.

By Levent Bulut